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Halo Book Breakdown

By Lightning

I've read all of the Halo novels (except for the two newest forerunner books, which I own and have been meaning to get around to reading), so I might be of some service.

Overview

The Fall of Reach -- Details the origins of the Spartan-2 program and the Human-Covenant warThe Flood -- Details the events that coincide with Halo:CE, with greater depth and additional details and storylines.First Strike -- Details how John and Sergeant Johnson escaped Halo and returned to Earth, and how the other Spartans survived and escaped the fall of Reach, bridging the gap between Halo 1 and Halo 2.Ghosts of Onyx -- Details the origins of the Spartan-3 program that would later appear in the game Halo Reach, and continues the story of the other Spartan-2s from First Strike, bridging the gap between Halo 2 and Halo 3.Contact Harvest -- Details both the origins of Sergeant Johnson and the specifics of the first contact with the Covenant and the resultant battle of Harvest.The Cole Protocol -- Details the shenanigans of a far-flung team of Spartan-2s, Human seperatists, and unquely detailed Covenant forces.Glasslands -- Details the events that occur after Ghosts of Onyx, and appears to bridge the gap between Halo 3 and Halo 4.

Reviews

The Fall of Reach is excellent, and is indespensible for understanding the entire Halo series. If you only read one book, make it this one. However, reading this book will make you pissed at how batshit-retarded and flat-out-wrong Halo Reach's story was.The Flood is a worthwile book to read, despite directly correlating to the events of Halo:CE. Even if you're intimately familiar with Halo:CE, there are a lot of extra details and side stories that make this book worth reading.First Strike is quite good, but starts dealing with some screwy metaphysics. It's definately still worth reading, but take a few aspects of it with a grain of salt.Ghosts of Onyx is a bit of a stretch. The latter third of the book is poorly detailed and poorly thought-out, but if you've been enjoying the series up to this point, it's still worth putting up with.Contact Harvest is quite good, refreshingly so after Ghosts of Onyx. Also, as it occurs concurrently with events that take place in The Fall of Reach, you could read it at any time after you've read The Fall of Reach.The Cole Protocol is a lot like TDKR: bizzarely and inexcusably boring. This is the only book that can be skipped entirely without missing things that will matter in other books, so if you're not enjoying what you're reading a few dozen pages into the book, feel free to put it down.Glasslands was admittedly interesting but incredibly frustrating to read. The book seems to suffer from being written by someone who simply isn't as familiar with the series as she needs to be. One storyline from previous novels was completely mishandled and resolved in an arbitrary and unsatisfying way, and the entire book is spent one-sidedly berating a certain character's morally ambiguous actions that, without which, nobody would even be fucking alive to criticize.

In reference to the Halo novels, you really can't say The Fall of Reach is inaccurate given that Bungie are the creators of Halo. I know the developers consider the books to be canon, but they ultimately decide(d) how to expand the fiction.

I also marked Darksiders II down for the lack of a story. Vigil establishes a great foundation for the series' lore, but they do nothing with the multi-realm intrigue. Death's actions carry no weight until the game's conclusion.

I'm willing to bet that Dragon Age: Origins is the least completed game on BioWare's resume because of its length. That, and the gameplay might have been too complex for some players, whereas Mass Effect allows buyers to fall back on the precision shooting if they are uncomfortable with the powers.

A lot of the difficulty in Call of Duty on Veteran came from enemies constantly throwing grenades (World at War). I remember reading a developer interview before MW2 saying they toned down the enemy A.I. with grenades, so that's probably why Veteran difficulty seems easier since then.

I'm the one who bought the batarang double edged knife. And while its awesome its way to heavy to use as a throwing knife so better luck next time guys. And I'm liking the new mic setup, but at the beginning it seemed like Dan was really loud while John was far away, got fixed halfway through the podcast though

@Josh Kowbell
I wasn't claiming that The Fall of Reach wasn't accurate or canon. I was instead lamenting how the game Halo Reach did not respect the canon that was already established by TFoR, concerning both the timeline of events and the availability of certain technologies to certain groups.